At very low weights, the effects of starvation will
always distort the expression of distress, and patients in
general are not necessarily aware of why they behave in
certain ways or why they may pursue certain goals. It
may be useful to assess certain symptoms from the perspective
of what it would be like not to have them. For
example, assessing body dissatisfaction/drive for thinness
not from the standpoint of how the person with AN
feels about their body at its current weight, but rather
how they would feel about their body, and how intense
their drive to lose weight would be if they imagined their
weight being within a normal weight range, holds some
utility [36].